‘Powerful people in the West and in Kiev do not want a Ukrainian settlement’ – Prof. Stephen Cohen

Arguing that there is a peace and war party in almost every capital, Professor Stephen Cohen, scholar of Russian studies at Princeton and New York Universities, told RT he believes the war party in Washington is against the Minsk agreement.

US policies in Ukraine
have failed to achieve their goals. With violence flaring up once
again, and relations fraught with tensions, diplomacy seems to be
the best option. But is there a consensus in the US on the
acceptable terms of a political settlement, and how are the
dynamics of US internal politics likely to affect its policy
toward Russia, especially as the 2016 presidential race heats
up?

To find answers to these questions RT’s program “Worlds Apart”
talked to Professor Stephen Cohen, Professor of Russian Studies
and History Emeritus at NYU, and Professor of Politics Emeritus
at Princeton University.

RT:A few weeks ago US Vice President Joe
Biden said that “everybody wants an end to this conflict in
Ukraine, but the question is on whose terms and how will it end.”
Are the terms to end this conflict are still being negotiated and
if so what options are on offer?

Stephen Cohen: My perspective is different from
that of Vice President Biden. We are now after all in almost two
years – a year and a half – of a new Cold War between the US and
Russia – an exceedingly dangerous confrontation over Ukraine,
which I think and I’ve said this for months could easily become
as dangerous as the Cuban missile crisis was. The politics of
this have now spread far and wide including in Europe. It seems
to me, and this is my fundamental analysis, that in almost every
capital – Washington, Brussels and certainly in Kiev, and even to
some degree in Moscow – there is what I call a peace and a war
party. The Minsk agreements, which were agreed upon by the
Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, the President of
Ukraine and of course President Putin of Russia represented then
a peace party. It set out in addition to a ceasefire in Ukraine
very far reaching, fundamental terms of negotiation to end the
civil war in Ukraine, to end the proxy war between the West and
Russia. It’s clear to me that there are powerful people in the
West and in Kiev who do not want a negotiated settlement.

RT:Vice President Biden, who recently said
that he talks to either PM Yatsenyuk or President Poroshenko on
almost a weekly basis – that’s what he said - do you think that
Biden belongs to the peace or war camp when he is on the phone
with them? Does he preach reconciliation?

SC: He says he talks to them three times per
week not once a week. But we have evidence, something very
dramatic just happened. As you know, in late May Secretary of
State John Kerry went to Sochi. First he met with Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov and then, remarkably, he met for four
hours with President Putin. It was absolutely clear from what was
said in Sochi at the press conferences afterwards that Kerry’s
mission had been to say that the US, the Obama administration,
now fully backed the Minsk agreement. That would put Kerry in the
peace party. It was kind of a surprise because he had been taking
a very hard line. However, look what then happened. Kerry was
attacked, literally criticized, for having gone to Sochi by
members of the Obama administration. The most vivid example
reported in the New York Times last Sunday I think was that a
former very close policy aide to Vice President Biden told the
reporter they didn’t know why Kerry had gone to Sochi, and that
he had sent bad messages and that his trip had been
counterproductive. So you conclude from this - and it confirms my
thesis - that there is a war party in every capital and even in
the White House itself.

RT:Despite this cheerful good guy image
that Mr. Biden has, he also has, I would say, a militaristic
track record in the Senate. Here was somebody who was in favor of
the second Iraq war, NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia, he is in favor
of NATO’s expansion eastwards. Do you think there might be a
division within the administration itself and if so which side is
President Obama more likely to listen to?

SC: I just gave you the evidence. It’s apparent
that there is a division inside the administration. Kerry goes to
Sochi, says certain things with Lavrov and with Putin, he
criticizes - by the way, this was the first public criticism I
have ever seen by a member of the Obama administration of the
Kiev regime, of its leadership. He criticized Poroshenko for
saying that he, Poroshenko, would by force take Crimea and
Donbass. That’s completely contradictory to what Poroshenko
agreed to in Minsk and Kerry criticized him publicly. He said,
“if that’s what Poroshenko has on his mind, I advise him to
drop this idea and support Minsk instead.”

That was practically a revolution in US foreign policy on the
part on Kerry. But then what happened? Kerry is criticized. So
the answer to your question is clearly there is a division. But
to put it all on Biden, who’s probably not the most influential
person at the moment, misses the larger point that the policy
toward Russia in the US today is completely bipartisan – it’s
Democratic and it’s Republican, and this includes the crisis in
Ukraine. And still worse, completely unlike the debate we had
during the last Cold War there is no public opposition in the
Democratic or the Republican Party, in the Senate or in the
mainstream media. This is a much more serious problem than
whatever Biden thinks or doesn’t think or has done in the past.
There is simply no opposition at all. We thought for a brief
moment that what Kerry did in Sochi was the beginning of a
debate, or at least an alternative position in Washington, but he
was attacked, he broke his leg, he disappeared. And now as you
see what happened in Europe at the G7 a couple of days ago, and
what Obama said there – Sochi has been forgotten.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.